Feeding your gouls and goblins on Halloween

I've never tried dinner in a pumpkin before and I couldn't find a recipe that sounded too appealing to me.  If any of you have a delicious dinner in a pumpkin recipe let me know!  Instead I thought I'd share a homemade pizza recipe that I love.  While you may not have time to do homemade pizza the night of the big trick-or-treat, this might be something fun to do as a family the day before or after...

Pizza Crust Recipe (Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook pg. 147):
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 package active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
2 tablespoons cooking oil or olive oil

In large mixing bowl combine 1 1/4 cups flour, the yeast, and 1/4 tsp salt; add warm water and oil.  Beat with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds, scraping bowl.  Beat on high speed 3 minutes.  Using a wooden spoon, stir in as much of the remaining flour as you can.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface.  Knead in enough remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic.  Divide dough in half.  Cover; let rest for 10 minutes.

Grease pans (I used flat 10" pizza pans).  With greased fingers, pat dough onto bottoms and halfway up sides of prepared pans.  Cover and let rise in a warm place until nearly double (30-45 minutes).  Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes...(I would recommend about 10 minutes...so its' not too crispy by the time you cook it with the toppings as well!)

BBQ Chicken Pizza
Three chicken breasts or 10-12 chicken tenders, cooked and cubed
1 cup hickory barbeque sauce
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon molasses
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
1 pizza crust
1-2 cups mozzarella cheese
Crumbled bacon

In a saucepan over medium heat, combine cooked chicken, bbq sauce, honey, molasses, brown sugar and cilantro.  Bring to a boil.

Spread chicken mixture evenly over pizza crust and top with bacon and cheese.  Bake for 15-20 minutes at 425.

Speaking of pizza, Pier 49 is giving free slices of pizza tomorrow, October 23rd from 12-5 p.m.  If you go to their site and vote for your favorite, the pizza with the highest votes is what will be served! 

For dessert, we have a tradition in my family to make caramel apples for Halloween.  So yummy!  Here's how we do it:

Pull the stem out of medium-sized granny smith apples (I use long-nosed pliers to get it it all out!)

I buy the wood dowels in the craft section of any store (got mine at Walmart) and cut them in half.  Some stores also sell caramel apple sticks with a pointed end to make it easier to insert into the apple.  Avoid popsicle sticks as they usually don't hold up while you are dipping the apple.

Now you're ready to make the caramel!  The easy version is to melt Kraft caramels, but here's a homemade caramel recipe that's yummy!

Caramel
 2 cups brown sugar
1 cup Karo
Mix and bring to a good boil over medium heat
Add...
1 square butter
1 can sweetened condensed milk
The recipe says to cook to about a soft ball stage...it may be best to boil for about 5 minutes and let the caramel thicken.  You want to avoid overcooking or the caramel will be really hard!

When caramel is ready, begin dipping apples.  I find the easiest way to do it is to place the whole bottom part of the apple in and spoon caramel around the top (stick) part.  Then hold the apple above the pot of caramel for about a minute to let excess drip off...about halfway through turn apple upside down (holding it like a sucker) to let the bottom part of the apple form.  I used wax paper to place them on but have heard parchment paper works better to avoid the apples sticking.

Now for the fun part!  We add all kinds of fun toppings.  My favorite is the apple pie caramel apple...white chocolate with cinnamon sugar!  So yummy!  A fun thing to do is let every family member make their favorite.  When they are all done, cut them up and let everyone try a bit of all of them!

Hope you enjoy a great Halloween dinner!